Some medicaments are used alone but in many cases, a plurality of medicaments are administered in combination to a patient. Particularly, in the case of a liquid injection administered by transfusion, it is often performed to prepare the injection by mixing medicaments or co-inject a slight amount of a secondary medicament into the primary medicament. Such an operation must be sterilely performed. This sterile dispensing operation is cumbersome and a danger of causing a dispensing failure is noted. Efforts have been heretofore made to improve this dispensing operation from the aspect of medical liquid container and thereby elevate safety and efficiency.
As for the container used in the medical field, a liquid medicament container where a plurality of contents are housed in a plurality of chambers partitioned in one container and although respective contents are not mixed before use, the contents can be easily mixed on use is known. For example, with respect to the liquid medicament container of preparing a transfusion preparation by mixing multiple species of medicaments immediately before transfusing the transfusion preparation, a liquid medicament container with multiple chambers is known, where a seal part produced by heat-melt bonding inner wall faces of a bag-shaped container formed of a synthetic resin-made film is used as a partition and medicaments are housed in a plurality of chambers partitioned by the seal part within the bag-shaped container. In a known constitution of such a liquid medicament container with multiple chambers, a rupturable liquidtight plug member is interposed in a part of the partition formed by the seal part and respective chambers are allowed to communicate by rupturing the liquidtight plug so that medicaments divided and housed in a plurality of chambers can be mixed.
Also, a container using a peelable weak seal for a part or the entirety of the partition formed by a seal part is known, where respective chambers are allowed to communicate by stripping the peelable weak seal by means of pressing or the like and thereby liquid medicaments divided and housed in multiple chambers can be mixed. These containers have a constitution such that at the time of performing transfusion by using the medicaments housed, the partition dividing respective chambers is caused to allow for communication and create one continuous chamber inside the container.
Out of these liquid medicament containers each with multiple chambers, in a medical liquid container having a primary medicament-housing chamber and a secondary medicament-housing chamber for housing a small amount of a medicament as in the case where the inner content largely differs among liquid medicaments housed in respective liquid medicament-housing chambers, when the communicatable partitioning means used therefor is a weak seal part conventionally employed for a medical liquid container with two chambers, the production is more facilitated than in the case of using another partition member and since communication can be attained by pressing one chamber to increase the inner pressure of the liquid medicament, the liquid medicaments can be easily mixed on use. Furthermore, the container comprising a sheet material has high flexibility, requires no air-passing needle, is excellent in hygiene, safety and workability such that the liquid discharge rate is kept constant throughout transfusion, realizes a small volume when wasted and ensures volume decrease at the disposal and therefore, this container is preferred as compared with conventional vials or medical liquid containers in which the entire is produced by blow molding.
In the medicament-housing chambers partitioned by using a sheet material and forming a seal part, since the sheet material is flat, the medicament-housing chamber before charging a medicament is naturally in a state having a volume of nearly 0. The medical container comprising a sheet material takes an inflated shape for the first time when a medicament is housed therein and the sheet material is deformed under a pressure generated due to self-weight of the medicament. Particularly, in the case of a relatively small-content secondary medicament, when only a small amount of the medicament is charged, the rigidity of the sheet material surpasses the pressure generated due to self-weight of the medicament and the container cannot be inflated, as a result, the medicament is merely spread like a film between sheets over a wide area.
If a small-content medicament is spread over a wide area in this way, at the time of sealing the secondary medicament-housing chamber by heat sealing, the medicament itself comes into contact with the heat-sealing part to cause a problem such as sealing failure or deterioration of the medicament. In addition, a housing chamber with a large area is necessary for housing a small amount of a secondary medicament and an excessively large medical container results to incur a problem of bad usability.
As for the medical container in the case where the. inner content ratio among medicaments housed in respective medicament-housing chambers is large, JP-A-2002-165864 (the term “JP-A” as used herein means an “unexamined published Japanese patent application”) describes a container in which a peelable weak seal is used for one partition of a housing container, a plurality of housing containers are joined through the weak seal part, and medicaments can be mixed on use. However, if a small-content secondary medicament chamber partitioned by a seal partition is formed in a medical container comprising a sheet material, a large area must be ensured for the secondary medicament chamber, as a result, the medical container as a whole becomes very large and its usability is bad.
JP-A-2003-159309 describes a container in which a relatively small secondary medicament-housing container part is formed by using a cylindrical injection molded member and can be joined with a primary medicament container part by the same technique as used for joining a cylindrical port for liquid discharge. However, in order to attain communication between the secondary medicament-housing chamber formed by using an injection molded member and the primary medicament chamber, a part of the injection molded member dividing these two chambers must be fractured to remove the partition, and the force for this communication operation must be suppressed to such an extent of allowing for almost no generation of fine pieces, particles or the like or not disturbing the transfusion. Therefore, the design and production of the injection molded member and the management of production become very difficult.
Furthermore, in the case where two or more secondary medicaments are used and these medicaments cannot be mixed in advance during storage but must be mixed on use, secondary medicament-housing container parts prepared as many as the number of secondary medicaments by using the injection molded member must be joined to the primary medicament container part and this is cumbersome from the mechanical point of view and the workability point of view.
JP-A-2003-62038 describes a case where since the secondary medicament-housing container part becomes relatively large when a flat bag formed of a sheet is used, a bag-shaped secondary medicament-housing container part is housed in a primary medicament container so as to suppress increase in the size of the entire medicament. In order to accommodate a secondary medicament-housing container part in a primary medicament container, foreign matters attached to the surface of the secondary medicament-housing container part must be thoroughly removed and the secondary medicament-housing container must be inserted by opening the primary medicament container in a clean environment, but this is very cumbersome from the mechanical point of view and the workability point of view.
Furthermore, JP-A-2000-5275 discloses a medical container in which a container for housing a relatively small-content secondary medicament is formed to intrude into a suspension hole. The object of this invention is to greatly reduce a danger of forgetting the operation of adding a small-content secondary medicament by passing the secondary medicament through the partition between the secondary medicament-housing chamber and the primary medicament-housing chamber. More specifically, on hanging a transfusion container, a notice is directed to the secondary medicament due to disturbance of the secondary medicament chamber intruded into the suspension hole, and a failure of forgetting to mix the medicament is thereby prevented. It is stated that for the purpose of distinguishing whether the secondary medicament is mixed or not, the material constituting the small-content secondary medicament chamber preferably has flexibility.
It is also stated that when the secondary medicament is not mixed and remains in the secondary medicament chamber, the mixing medicament chamber is inflated and therefore, this can be easily viewed from outside. As understood from these, in the invention described in JP-A-2000-5275, the material constituting the secondary medicament-housing chamber is substantially soft and the secondary medicament-housing chamber is inflated when housing a secondary medicament but is deflated when the secondary medicament is mixed with the primary medicament. Such a secondary medicament-housing container part comprising a substantially soft material and being deflated in the state of not housing a secondary medicament requires a large area for housing a small-content secondary medicament, and a very large medical container results.
As described above, the invention of JP-A-2002-165864 has a problem that when a container for housing a small-content secondary medicament is produced from a planar container capable of weak sealing, a container with a large area is necessary and the size of the entire medicament becomes large. In the invention of JP-A-2003-159309, when an injection molded member is used for the secondary medicament-housing container part, opening to the primary medicament container can be attained by fracturing a part of the injection molded member at the mixing on use. Therefore, the injection molded member must be designed and produced not to generate fine pieces, particles or the like at the fracturing and the management of production is very severe.
In the invention of JP-A-2003-62038, in order to accommodate a secondary medicament-housing container part in a primary medicament container, foreign matters attached to the surface of the secondary medicament-housing container part must be thoroughly removed and an operation of opening the primary medicament container in a clean environment and placing and fixing the secondary medicament-housing container part therein must be performed. Such a process requires a mechanically complicated apparatus and moreover, the apparatus must be installed and operated in a clean environment. Furthermore, there is a problem that the control for preventing foreign matters from mingling is very cumbersome.
In the invention of JP-A-2000-5275, if the container for housing a small-content secondary medicament is produced in a shape capable of weak sealing, a container with a large area is necessary and the entire medicament size becomes large. In this patent publication, it is also disclosed to use the injection molded member for the partition wall dividing a mixing medicament container and a primary medicament container or for the mixing medicament container itself, but in such a case, there arises a problem that the production process is more cumbersome and difficult than in the case of using the peelable partitioning means and the produced container becomes expensive.
The present invention has been made under these circumstances and an object of the present invention is to provide a relatively compact medical liquid container which is free from sealing failure in the seal portion at the peripheral edge of the liquid medicament-housing chamber and also free from deterioration of a medicament housed in a small amount and ensures good usability as a medical container; and a preparation-containing medical liquid container.